


Thy Will Be Done

by hopelessbookgeek



Series: Gold-Lie Promises [4]
Category: Rooster Teeth/Achievement Hunter/Funhaus RPF
Genre: Murder, Religion
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-12-17
Updated: 2016-12-17
Packaged: 2018-09-09 07:40:47
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,284
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/8881798
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/hopelessbookgeek/pseuds/hopelessbookgeek
Summary: There are bad men, and then there are Bad Men. The former, mostly harmless, are allowed to live out their lives of quiet desperation. The latter are an affront to God and the decency of man, and the Vagabond isn't going to let them out alive.





	

**Author's Note:**

> I... hope this isn't blasphemous. I mean, I hope it is a little, but like, artistically so.

_Our Father, who art in Heaven._

There are bad men, and then there are Bad Men. Regular bad men steal, and cheat, and lie. They drink too much and think too little; they catcall, swear, and smoke. The world is full of bad men like that, for the world is full of men.

The worst of them, the truly Bad Men, do not content themselves with the sins of lesser beings. They abuse, rape, corrupt, kill. They are the bankers who burn the poor to keep themselves warm; they are the politicians who accept bribes for favors; they are the police who turn a blind eye to atrocity; they are the businessmen whose wealth and power is only exceeded by their solipsism and greed.

Those are the people who do not deserve to live.

_Hallowed be thy name._

In the downtown Los Santos bank, there works a certain man. He has no name; he is every man. He is liked by his subordinates and admired by his peers. He has never taken a wallet out of a purse or coat pocket, but he profits every day from a system designed to steal unfathomable sums from the most vulnerable. Sins against the weak and defenseless were the most potent.

_Thy kingdom come._

A man’s public persona and his true self are often quite different, as anyone who lurks in shadows can say. Some men rage at their boss before driving their children to soccer practice; some shine so bright that their light dims the moment they clock out of work; and some, like this man, succeed in business and bring home a hefty paycheck and a sharp backhand for a wife who has not presented herself to his satisfaction.

It is for her behalf that the Vagabond of Los Santos slunk from the metaphorical sewers and sharpened his knives. After all, it is defense; if not self, then at least of the defenseless. It is a holy calling.

_Thy will be done._

Three blocks to the subway stop; it takes the man fifteen minutes. The brisk autumn air nips at his ears and he sticks his hands into the pocket of his coat as he accidentally bumps into a woman. The coat costs more than she will make all year. He does not know this. She does. Those far below have sharper eyes.

Four subway stops from the financial district to the crop of expensive apartments; at a quieter hour it would be a quick trip, but at this time of homecoming, it takes twenty minutes. The subway car is crowded; a pregnant girl is forced to stand. The man settles back into his seat and pretends not to notice.

_On Earth as it is in Heaven._

On the street corner next to the deli, an old man with the stereotypical sandwich board cries about the end times, and about retribution. The man walks by him without saying a word, without making eye contact, giving every appearance that he had not even noticed him. That was the way of things; that was the status quo. Those up above have the luxury of blindness. The Vagabond blackens his eyes with greasepaint.

_Give us this day our daily bread._

There is construction on the usual route the man walks home. One day, he thinks, he will simply start taking a car everywhere, rather than just summer and winter. But no, he likes the exercise from the walking, or at least the impressed looks on his peers faces when he tells them he takes the subway home, just like one of the rabble. And besides, the traffic would be unbearable.

There is a sign pointing to a detour down an alley. It is not dark or particularly dirty, no more so than any other side street; it does not look like the place where rich men go to die. So he does not notice that the detour sign lacks the seal of the city on the corner, though it is otherwise an excellent forgery, and he walks briskly down the alley.

_And forgive us our trespasses, as we forgive those who trespass against us._

There are two turns at the end of the alley. The first brings him to the next street over; the second is a dead end. He does not learn the secret places of even the wealthiest part of the city; he does not memorize the labyrinth of his home city. He does not have to see into the shadow, and his blindness is easy but dangerous. He takes the route with the dead end; he does not see the figure crouched beside the dumpster.

_And lead us not into temptation._

The crouching figure stood tall, more than six feet. The Vagabond and the banker were the same height but somehow the man felt cowed anyway.

_But deliver us from evil._

It was simple. The Vagabond pulled the silk tie around the banker’s throat tight, too tight, and so quick the banker did not even have time to cry out. He had no last words.

_For thine is the kingdom,_

His face turned redder and redder. The color was the same as the bruise he gave his wife just the week before. She would be waiting up for him when he did not come home. He would never come home.

_the power,_

After red was blue and purple, the resounding beauty of hypoxia. The Vagabond had been told that in the late stages of breathlessness, the sufferer hallucinated. He wondered, distantly, what the banker saw.

_and the glory._

He struggled, of course. They all struggled. But he was doughy and surprised, and the Vagabond was strong. He was empowered. He was an archangel. He was blessed, and he was practiced, and he had been waiting for this moment. Not for this man; this man was every man, he was no one. But for this moment. Life is the most beautiful gift there is; to see one end at one’s own hand is a rare and treasured power.

Eventually, it might have been hours later, he stopped struggling, and the Vagabond dropped him and left him where he fell. He was no one. He would receive a burial befitting the man he’d been, perhaps, if anyone found him. He hoped they would. It was vanity, but his name on the nightly news was a thrill.

_Forever and ever._

The Vagabond fell to his knees before the banker as before an altar. He tore open his fine pressed shirt, pushed his damned tie out of the way, so that the smooth marble tablet of his chest was bare to the sky. It was sunset; he had to be finished while the light was still in the sky. He took out his knife and set about writing, as easily as a stylus through wax. If the police found this man, they would find the moldering wounds stylized as letters: GEN 1:31.

 _And GOD saw every thing that he had made, and, behold, it was very good._ He left a business card in the man’s pocket, a crumpled notecard bearing only the letter V. He wondered idly if any of the police had worked out what the letter stood for. It did not matter, truly.

Ryan Haywood tore the mask from his face and dropped it. He rubbed the greasepaint from his shining blue eyes as best he could, using the man’s embroidered handkerchief. He would have to take it with him, of course, part security and part memento. His fingertips were bloody from the making of letters, but still he touched them to his forehead, his chest, both shoulders. 

“Amen,” he said aloud, and it was done.


End file.
